Chiaroscuro is defined as “the treatment of light and shadow in drawing and painting.”
In this video clip from our “You Can Paint” Master Class Sketching course, Tom explains how to apply chiaroscuro to your drawings and, ultimately, your paintings. There are some important concepts in this clip, particularly Tom’s discussion of “relief”.
For those of you fortunate enough to see a Bill Alexander painting up close, you know Bill used a lot of paint! We have often remarked he used so much paint his artwork had a three-dimensional look to it. This is what Tom is talking about. It is a very advanced technique of Bill’s system that, probably, less than 1% of artists know about. That’s why we developed the “You Can Paint” Master Class. We wanted to unlock the deeper secrets of Bill’s method of oil painting. There is no one on the planet who know more about Bill and his techniques than Tom Anderson.
I am not sure where you are getting the information that “less than 1% of artists” know about the idea of working in layers. This is pretty far-fetched in my opinion. Every pro knows this. Maybe less than 1% of amateurs know this concept… or are you talking about something different than working in layers of medium?
Thanks for the clarification.
I understand what you are getting at, and respectfully, I don’t agree that thickly applied paint necessarily yields an appealing look. Impasto=good is not an axiom of art.
Furthermore, the measure of ‘quite a few’ in regards to your reference to the ‘flat-painting artists’ is still a subjective one. In opposition, I personally know perhaps 2 score of painters who take it for granted that ‘flatness’ in paintings is just unacceptable -they would never leave a painting in that state. Along with this, if you take into account literally the 1000s of non-flat images I have seen, made by the colleagues with whom I work, I would say that virtually none of them regard flatness as acceptable in a finished piece.
Whomever you are thinking of that paints in this way, I would not consider a professional artist- paid or no. No editor I have ever worked with in my entire career would ever accept flat looking work, and editors are not artists.
I respectfully would like to apply this opinion from the illustrator Andrew Loomis, who is long dead. His opinion exactly reflects how I believe any and all viewers rate artwork when they look at it objectively.
He maintains that there is no disconnect in our mind between what looks correct and what doesn’t. The problem is when the artist doesn’t yet understand how to create the illusion of depth or realism. When I struggle with these issues, I know that the work just isn’t ready for a market such as the illustration market, with which I am intimately familiar. I wouldn’t send art to the editor in that state. My opinion is that ‘flatness’ in painting is a mark of inexperience, and that amongst people that create images for their job, it is not prevalent. It occurs quite frequently amongst hobby painters and student painters though, and furthermore, everyone can see the flatness, including the creator. Unfortunately, that same artist/creator doesn’t usually have the method to get their image out of the puzzle, and impasto painting is not it.
Andrew Loomis:
To understand why a drawing does or does not appeal, we must recognize a certain ability that is developed in every normal individual from early childhood through adult life. The
term “intelligent perception” I think comes as close as any to describing this faculty. It is vision coordinated with the brain. lt is a sense of rightness developed by contact. At some time or other,
our brains accept certain effects or appearances as truth, and abide by these decisions. We learn to distinguish one appearance from another, in size or proportion, in color, and in texture. All the senses combine to give us intelligent perception. We have a sense of space or depth, even if we know nothing of the science of perspective.
We are quickly aware of distortion or deformity, since the appearance does not coincide with what experience has taught us is normal or truthful. Form is registered in the mind, even if we know nothing of anatomy and proportion, so that we recognize a face immediately, though we could not even give a good verbal description of it. Our sense of proportion tells us that this is a child and that a midget, or this a puppy and that a small dog. Intelligent perception includes a feeling for bulk and contour. We know a swan
from a goose, or a goose from a duck. This trait is as well developed in those who look at art as it is in artists. We all as individuals have subconsciously accepted certain effects of light. We know when appearances are consistent with daylight, artificial light, twilight, or bright sunlight.
Such perception is part of nature.